"Like the sculptor Michelangelo, who saw angels encased in marble and carved until he set them free, Gordon Bennett liberates scrapped sewing machines, fire alarms and other assorted junk, releasing components from their prior incarnations in order to forge something sublime: robot figurines. Named in honor of their former lives, creations like Filmo, Tenna, and Mr. Pots are oh-so-much more than the sum of their parts. R2-D2 would be proud." -- from Seed Magazine, April/May 2006.
Gordon Bennett has a sculpture workshop in Brooklyn, New York. He and his family collectively hunt for robot parts at local stoop sales, dumpters and garbage cans in their Park Slope neighborhood. The materials are wood, metal, bakelite, glass, plastic, rubber, and paint. Each robot is a unique, one-of-a-kind sculpture and receives its own numbered metal tag as proof it's an authentic Bennet Robot Works robot. Each robot takes about a month to build. They range in height from 14" to 25". There are no moving or battery operated parts.
Gordon Bennett studied art at Syracuse University where he received a BFA in Advertising and Design. He is a member of the Brooklyn Arts Council. He has been creating robot sculptures for around seven years. Robot sculptures are in private collections in the U.S., Great Britain and Japan. Bennett Robot Works has been featured in several international magazines including THE BULLETINE in Sydney, Australia, PIG and FLAIR in Milano, Italy and KIJK in Holland. Robot sculptures have also appeared in SEED in the U.S.
Berlin-based design book publisher Die Gestalten Verlag (dgv), plans to include pieces from Bennett Robot Works in a new book about character design scheduled for release in October 2006 called "Dot Dot Dash". Archived web articles about Bennett Robot Works can be found at such well known sites as BoingBoing, Technorati, Treehugger and Cool Hunting.
